The Card Apprentice

Jie Yanbai had a solemn expression as a blush of bright red floated onto his pallid face. He said in a low voice, “Young Zu doesn’t want his scheme to come to naught. Yanbai is wounded, so I’m naturally not the equal of young Zu. But if young Zu insists on going it alone today, then even though my brothers and I would be laying our lives on the line, we will never retreat!”

Once he said that, the breathing of the Central Repository of the Classics card artisans turned coarse as they went red in the eye! What Jie Yanbai said carried a lot of weight. He filled the card artisans with his indignation and solitary fighting spirit.

His adversary had come prepared with plenty of strength. On his side, the general had been wounded, and their numbers were a lot smaller. Once they made their move, it would a battle with no chance of victory!

But no one was retreating.

Zu Ning suddenly felt his head aching, never having thought Jie Yanbai would actually be so stubborn. Moreover, he’d never thought Jie Yanbai’s response would be so rapid. They had only just made their move when the other side had gotten the news. Jie Yanbai didn’t have much by himself, but behind him was represented the entire Central Repository of the Classics. Once the battle started, it would bring rather severe consequences.

“Hrumph, what’s up with the Central Repository of the Classics? Do they really want to be trampled beneath the feet of the Federation Comprehensive Academy? Bring it on, blowhards!”

An abrupt voice suddenly came from the Federation Comprehensive Academy’s camp, closely followed by a light beam shooting toward Jie Yanbai.

Zu Ning’s heart sank. Who would actually dare to be so rash with no authority? But he reacted quickly, immediately realizing what the subsequent chain reaction would be like.

By that time, they could only advance. An explanation would be of no use. Once the fuse had been lit, there was no way to extinguish it.

With no hesitation, he ordered, “Move!”

* * *

The base had been peaceful.

Judging from the outside, one would never have imagined things were in full swing inside. Training, training, and more training! Everyone seemed to have gone crazy as they desperately trained. Chen Mu was making sets of cards with no sense of day or night.

That set of cards had been named the tactical shuttle card set by Bogner. Since they needed more than 100 sets, it was a pretty big project for Chen Mu. Fortunately, there were a lot of people to help, which had made it easier on him.

In the materials lab, the Origins Academy card masters all had their faces on fire.

“I will never come back to this place in my life!” a card artisan among them said with spite.

“I won’t come back in my next life!” Another one picked up the theme, though he didn’t stop what he was doing as he quickly stirred the liquid in the reagent bottle. What came out of his mouth was extremely dissatisfied. “We come here, and first we make energy cards any mid-grade card artisan could make. Hrumph, now we’re making what any underclass student could do.”

He had plenty of reason to be unhappy. He was an older professor at the Origins Academy card making division, who had surprisingly been sent by Chen Mu to do the most basic work of producing the card ink and processing the blank cards. That was even more basic than the power card making they’d done previously.

Another professor sneered, “What can we do? We already promised the president when we arrived. Ai! Do it. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any of this myself. Ordinarily at the school, I could find any student to do it for me, and they would do it with more vitality.”

The professor in front of him suddenly asked, “Professor Wen, what do you think this card ink will actually be used for? I somehow feel that its ratios are very strange.”

“Yes, yes, I find it strange as well.” Quite a few professors felt the same way.

Professor Wen was acting as the lead of those card masters, and he was the most experienced and capable among them. The entire card making division, apart from Madam Pei, regarded him that way.

Professor Wen pondered for a moment and said, “To tell the truth, I’m not so clear myself. The light iron ore they’re using here should be soaked in glass liquid before it can be effective. What’s being used on it is the juice of the luo leaf and a solution of black oil extract.”

They all stopped what they were doing to listen to Professor Wen’s explanation.

“The ratio of gold between the luminous leaf and the python-patterned vine should be 1.47-to-2.56, which any card master should know. But the ratio here is 1.1-to-1. I have never seen such a strange ratio.”

Someone couldn’t help but interrupt. “Precisely! Then, there’s the prismatic crystal powder. That stuff is generally used in the scanner class of cards and generally for the processing of acidic liquids. However, you can see he’s using the alpha enzyme solution. What method is that?”

They all nodded, never having heard of such a processing method.

Professor Wen knitted his brow. He could tell how puzzled they were. “From what we can see as of now, the card inks we are producing should be three kinds, but we still don’t know what they’re being used for. We have no instruments on hand and no way to analyze them. Moreover, I secretly used those three kinds of card ink to make a fantasy card, but I found them to be useless.”

They all looked at one another.

Professor Wen then said, thinking of what he’d been doing, “Judging from the quantity he requires, he must need to make a lot of cards. I’m guessing it’s possible he’s making some kind of… No, it’s three kinds of unique cards. These card inks are to be used for some special kind of composition.”

Someone suddenly had a brainstorm. “Why don’t we go ask Ru Qiu? She’s assisting him every day and should know what kind of card he’s making.”

Everyone else echoed that. Their curiosity had already been piqued by the card inks. Those irrational things had completely hooked them.

After thinking it over, Professor Wen shook his head to say, “We won’t do it for a while. I believe given little Qiu’s wits, she will certainly record quite a few things. After this is all over, we’ll ask when we get back. To dig into someone else’s secrets just now might cause some misunderstanding, which wouldn’t be good.”

“That’s right. Ru Qiu is so smart, I reckon the little guy’s bottom has already been about probed! Ha ha.” The professors all laughed together.

Professor Wen also laughed and said, “Quite possibly. Little Qiu’s wits are the most outstanding I’ve seen. If Madam Pei hadn’t moved so quickly, little Qiu would be my student. Ai, to have missed the first ranks is killing me with regret.”

The professors were all praising Ru Qiu while the other scholars to the side were sneering.

Ru Qiu had no idea such high hopes were being placed on her, and she wasn’t in such a good situation. Her complexion had turned pallid. The exhaustion of her mental exertions was too intense, which led to a lack of blood and qi.

She hadn’t realized those cards would be so awesome. They were simply like comets to her. Every time she saw the composition on the cards, they would generate a kind of esoteric sense, as though she were realizing something. But once she calmed herself down to carefully consider it, she would find that all those things were figments. That made her want to spit blood. She’d asked Chen Mu to teach her a few times but never got the response she wanted.

Everything involved Token Theory. How would Chen Mu explain that to her? How could he explain it clearly?

He still had the headache of the folding Yanbo card. He certainly had to give his counterpart the method to make it, but Token Theory was something he could never divulge. That was going to be hard to manage!

Plus, he didn’t have time just then to think about those issues. His most direct issue was the 100 sets of the tactical shuttle cards. It was a good thing those 20 high-grade card masters were helping him produce the card ink and process the blank cards. He would only have to make the cards every day.

Given his current perceptual strength and acuity, he could make 15 sets of the tactical shuttle cards per day, which meant he would need about ten days to complete all the cards. What was important was the Token knowledge implicated in that set of cards, so he couldn’t turn them over to those card masters to make. Otherwise, he could be a lot more efficient.

He would just have to make them himself, so Chen Mu gritted his teeth and persevered.

Finally completing that day’s 15 sets of cards, his perception was rather depleted. He walked up to the seventh floor, wanting to see how the training of those rookies was going. He’d been taking a lot more initiative ever since the day he’d figured things out.

Although the training was sealed off, of course it was fine for the boss to come for an inspection. Bogner looked a lot thinner than before, and his eyes were sunken. His gaze, however, was still sharp.

“Boss.”

“How’s their training going?” Chen Mu felt rather satisfied seeing the regimented ranks on the training field.

Bogner shook his head and splashed some cold water on Chen Mu. “It’s still very early. According to normal standards, this kind of regimented training should be undertaken for several months. But we don’t have that much time and will have to grind it out later on.”

Chen Mu hadn’t really been placing that much hope on those rookies. Although he didn’t understand those things, he did understand that coordinated troops couldn’t be established overnight. He then said something about the situation he was facing himself. “I’ve already completed 45 of the card sets, and I intend to make 150 sets, plus an extra five sets as spares.”

“Mmmm.” Bogner nodded. “Can you send up the finished cards to give the elite group to try? We’ll see what kind of results they get. And, we can give the rest of the troops some incentive.”

“Right.” Chen Mu quite agreed with that idea.

“We have to do some other work, Boss.” Bogner led Chen Mu to his own room, where drawings were strewn about.

They all had calculations on them. The drawings were diagrams of the base, on which were lots of markings, as well as the traces of many deletions.

“These are all drafts.” Bogner grabbed a clean sheet of drawing paper and made some clear markings. “I’ve been thinking these last few days that our time is too short. Even though we have the tactical shuttle card set, that’s still not enough. These rookies basically haven’t experienced battle; if we were to let them go to battle, I’m afraid it would be a rout. Hence, we’ll have to spend some time on our defenses.”

Seeing that Chen Mu was listening carefully, Bogner’s spirits were stimulated. “Look at these marks. They are all the firing points I’ve calculated. We only need to prepare them at these positions to be able to form a dense net of fire. Regardless of what angle the adversary enters the scope of our defenses, he would always face fire from more than five firing points. Our troops positioned inside the firing fortress could rely on the defensive capability of the fortress to reduce their casualties. Moreover, in such an enclosed environment, they could calm their jangled nerves. That would be conducive to bringing out their best.”

Bogner picked up a pen and sketched a set of lines on the schematic. Those lines formed a tight net.